“As the United States seeks to continue its ability to dominate the air, land and sea, applications of AI in warfare will permeate into every facet of combat.” — Joseph Steigman, Artificial Intelligence and Defense white paper, April 2020
The U.S. Army is creating innovative ways to advance the sustainment warfighting function (WfF) in the multidomain operations (MDO) environment of 2028. Army sustainers will continue to explore the possibilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it can reduce the many shortfalls within the supply chain and resupply the Army and joint forces. Senior sustainment leaders will need to address three major challenges: material, organizational, and doctrinal gaps within the sustainment WfF. Our sustainment capabilities lack tactical mobility, tactical fuel distribution, and Army pre-positioned stocks (APS) in a contested environment.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underscores real-life supply and support challenges, including transporting supplies, a lack of realistic training, a lack of effective sustainment planning, and a delay in the production of defense industrial materials such as ammunition and artillery shells. Leveraging Al and intelligent automation presents substantial opportunities to address material, organizational, and doctrinal gaps in the sustainment discipline. By doing so, U.S. joint and multinational forces can position themselves for victory against our near-peer adversary, China.
The Indo-Pacific theater presents unique challenges for U.S. joint forces, allies, and multinational forces. However, the Army must be able to sustain large, dispersed forces far from home. Wars can be won or lost based on a military’s ability to conduct logistics operations. If the U.S. were involved in a conflict with a peer enemy, such as China, we would be in a similar situation as the one we faced in World War II. Under the influence of a new operational concept, MDO, the Army continues to move forces globally in preparation for large-scale combat operations (LSCO). The U.S. must address modern-day logistics for the Army in the Pacific, and how the Army can support the U.S. joint forces in the next conflict there.
Modern Warfare: Sustainment Challenges During the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
The Russia-Ukraine War proves that the U.S. Army can no longer depend on uncontested sustainment. There are multiple reasons Russia is suffering major losses and has been unable to win the war.
First, poor planning and inaccurate logistics projections: Russia’s logistics failure almost caused a potential culmination period due to the lack of critical supplies during the early stage of the campaign against Ukraine. This was solely due to Russia’s attempt to rapidly invade Ukraine within a few days before critical logistic resources were depleted. Repair, maintenance, and supply distribution have been other crucial issues for Russia throughout the conflict. Operating in a contested environment put Russia in a battle with supplies and resources. Due to the lack of rail support in Ukraine, Russian ground vehicles failed to move fuel, munitions, spare parts, and other materials quickly and efficiently to forward-deployed units. The delay in lines of supply and communication could not withstand the long distance of combat pushes. The Russian military vehicles used for supply pushes were unsuitable and were not properly protected from counterattacks by Ukrainian forces.
Second, poor assumptions about Ukraine’s tactics against the Russian military: Seizing and holding territory were major Russian objectives. This included integration of combined arms combat power, i.e., land and air power, and long-range fires. Russia was unable to prevent foreign assistance to Ukraine, and so Ukraine received weapons, munitions, fuel, and other aid from foreign nations.
Third, poor evaluation of Ukraine’s command and control nodes: Russian military leaders and intelligence personnel failed to accurately perform cyber attacks and electronic warfare against Ukraine’s critical infrastructures and high-value targets. This gave Ukraine more leverage to communicate and continue fighting against Russian aggression. Russia’s poor execution of domain warfare captures the many challenges the country underwent in the invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. needs to develop a strong industrial base using AI and autonomous systems (AS) to prepare for LSCO in the Indo-Pacific. The Army must also modernize its support capabilities to withstand demands within MDO.
LSCO in the Indo-Pacific
In the last five years, the Army refocused its lens toward large-scale combat that will take place through multiple domains in preparation for interactions with peer and near-peer threats. The premise of the Army’s MDO concept is that commanders must understand what their forces will contain and must operate in all domains during ground combat. The Army’s next battlefield will be a fight for land and space but unique regarding supporting and sustaining LSCO.
Implementation of AI and AS for Sustainment in MDO for LSCO
AI is crucial in LSCO in a maritime environment. It involves essential processes and procedures from all sustainment elements, including the national defense industrial base. Near-peer threats to logistics units can limit the deployability and availability of resources to and from the operational environment. As stated in Field Manual 4-0, Sustainment Operations, enemy threats can exploit critical vulnerabilities and weaknesses of the sustainment forces through information, intel, and disruption of systems across multiple domains (air, land, maritime, space, and cyberspace). Modern technology and AI present far more lethal threats, such as hypersonic missiles and armed drones, which can cause major destruction.
Army sustainment capabilities lack the tactical mobility and tactical distribution of fuel and APS in a contested environment. AI and AS have presented many opportunities for the Army supply chain. AI gives units, down to the battalion level, the ability to leverage the capabilities needed to improve supply chain management, resource distribution, mobility, and planning and preparation. Though AI has its concerns and challenges between human integration expertise and automation, cybersecurity, and the ever-changing environment, AI is still a robust tool for Army sustainers.
Applying AI will include doctrine, organization, training, material, leader development, personnel, and facilities, while mainly focusing on the material, organization, and doctrine. One example of a material solution is implementing AI-operated small-range boats that could improve travel time from large vessels to shore in a large region such as the Indo-Pacific. The process would include AI-optimized operations and capabilities in the warehouses during the production and distribution of these small-range boats. Therefore, AI would be used as a material solution as well. AI will have the ability to forecast demands for the equipment and parts in demand, allowing the warehouse to have better visibility, reducing costs, and decreasing the chances of unavailability or shortages.
Another example of a solution is the increase in supply production and distribution in the supply warehouses using AI to record data, providing real-time accurate information and analytics, and reducing delays in critical resources in crucial environments like the Indo-Pacific. AI can track and handle more tasks in industrial production from logistic support to reconnaissance in any given combat operation.
Adjusting to AI and AS can be time-consuming and expensive. Human interaction with AI is always needed to provide knowledge-based experience and information. China has AI capabilities that parallel those of the U.S. Therefore, the U.S. Army must continue to be innovative about the way AI is used throughout the WfFs and to maintain the advantage in MDO during LSCO. Autonomous weapon systems and AI weapons programming can engage targets, control missile systems with advanced targeting capabilities, and operate drones for reconnaissance and surveillance. AI prevents risk to human lives by transporting, delivering, and navigating supplies in dangerous environments.
The concept of using AI/AS in sustainment is to develop innovative solutions to predict a unit’s need for combat power capabilities, readiness, and resources. The goal of AI is to align abilities with human capabilities, particularly in the decision-making process in planning for sustainment needs. In the last five years, AI has been the leader in industrial production. AI technology in product design, maintenance operations, and product assembly has given the DoD a new level of innovative ways to move products rapidly, effectively, and efficiently from the warehouse to the battlefield. AI provides the visibility of supply chain demands, inventory, distribution, and forecasting of critical combat power while allowing the human interaction of accurately managing production and data-based analysis.
China continues to increase its ability to control digital logistical database platforms and to delay support or disrupt critical logistics operations in any area of operation, costing lives and preventing operational reach. For example, China has a logistical network, the National Public Information Platform for Transportation and Logistics (LOGINK), which is a worldwide data platform with access to ports and maritime transport systems that provide shipment tracking, data management, and other services free of charge. The use of AI can assist in protecting from disruption of logistical support from data platforms like LOGINK and prevent malicious attacks through logistics convergence.
Logistics Convergence
Maritime domains require planners to consider operational reach and the impact of space and time on reinforcements for deployed units. One of the ways the Army does this is through a logistics convergence. The Army’s definition of convergence is an outcome created by the concerted employment of sustainment capabilities from multiple domains and echelons against combinations of decisive points in any domain. For logistics in maritime operations, convergence plays a vital role by providing the time and space for precise logistics to support the warfighter in any combat operation.
Near-peer adversaries China and North Korea can disrupt logistics operations from ship to shore, particularly the intermediate staging base to the logistical vessel. Army logisticians have the responsibility to continue supporting the forces through a small lens of opportunity with pulse logistics through convergence windows. Aircraft and small unmanned aerial systems can assist in detecting enemy capabilities in the area and provide horizon support for critical movements in the water or on land. The space domain includes satellite capabilities that can assist with the divergence plan to temporarily confuse the enemy, allowing a small amount of time for the theater sustainment command, Army watercraft systems, and security to position themselves to deploy personnel onto the shore. These types of operations require precise training. The cyber domain can disrupt communications temporarily, giving the time needed to make necessary movements from the coast to the ISB without giving away the route and location of the operational environment.
Further Research
Here are a few recommendations for further research:
- Generate battlefield data analysis that assesses logistical gaps, potential reasons for capabilities and supply shortfalls, and predicts adjusted consumption rates.
- Provide logistics package needs, route data, and battlefield considerations by allowing AI and AS to create randomized route planning and transportation tables.
- Develop more efficient AI for the defense logistical systems and logistics capabilities at ports or in warehouses.
- Create a function that would allow planners to submit a roster, vehicle set, or lift capabilities, and ask it to create sustainment packages before missions.
- Use AI to process, produce, and deliver demand for crucial parts in contested environments.
- Produce a fleet of AI-operated 3D-printed boats that can be stationed at ports or onshore for quick deliveries. The advantages of using 3D-printing technology to create these boats are numerous. There is no material waste because any unused material can be recycled. Customized boat parts make the boats lighter in weight, which in turn makes them faster than traditional ships.
Conclusion
Leveraging AI and AS will address the material, organizational, and doctrinal gaps in the sustainment discipline and can lead to overall victory against a future near-peer adversary. The significant gaps in the Army’s ability to successfully sustain the force in a contested environment are incredibly challenging and complex. However, the Army is taking steps to bridge these gaps by leveraging AI capabilities. Army leadership is on the right path to sustain the fight in the Pacific with near-peer adversaries.
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Maj. Sharlene Tilley attends the Advanced Military Studies Program at the School of Advance Military Studies and is a graduate of the resident Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. She served as the distribution company commander and the 426th Brigade Support Battalion operations officer in the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Kentucky. She served as a doctrine author at the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, Fort Leavenworth. She holds two Masters of Art degrees, one in acquisition and procurement from Webster University and the other in higher education and administration from the University of Louisville.
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This article was published in the fall 2024 issue of Army Sustainment.
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